Artifice
by Bluecookie300
Summary: Jason walked into a bar. Instead of just gathering his intel and leaving, what he finds is his would-be older sister completely sloshed and way more honest than he's ready to handle. Apparently, there are way skeletons in the collective closet of the Bat-family than anyone knew. Fem!Dick (Rachel). Dick Grayson Centric.


It was a dingy little bar on the bad side of town. To be fair, this was Gotham and all sides of town were bad really, but this hole in the wall was located down near the docks, shoved in-between two warehouses.

To the inexperienced, the area gave off an aura of abandonment, seemingly empty of most life; dark, dreary and drab. It had none of the gothic charms that made much of Gotham more emo than it had any right to be.

But for those who knew better, disgusting life was dripping from every crevice. Down every ally were warm needles and stuffed in each abandoned warehouse where the big and small footprints of all kinds of rats, beast and otherwise.

But anyway, back to the bar. On most weekends the bar was beyond overcrowded, and even on this Tuesday night, Jason found it to be comfortably full. Jason appreciated the lack of the hassle of pushing through drunken throngs. What he didn't appreciate was how exposed he felt, it wasn't crowded enough that he could hide amongst the masses and he was not looking to get recognised.

His dumbass informant that has chosen this time and place for an exchange was getting dropped the second they were down tonight. If they were stupid enough to think that this was a smart place to meet than they were too stupid to be on his payroll.

He made his way over to the bar, it looked like tonight was already a bust so he might as well get a drink out of it.

It was just as he was leaning back on the counter, drink at his lips, that his eyes caught on Dixie.

What in the hell is she doing here he thought, examining his would-be sister. She was letting some douchebag of a guy press her into the wall, knee between her legs. Her drink was in her hands, half-covering her face as she blatantly flirted.

Jason was more shocked by how sloshed she looked than anything else, there were a million reasons why she might be here, doing what she was doing, and all of them related back to her work. She could even be here for the same reason as him.

But she wasn't.

This wasn't a mission, or recon or undercover work. It couldn't be.

Because she was absolutely sloshed, barely coherent, and about to go home with a guy that clearly had bad intentions.

For any other twenty-five year old that could have just sounded like a night of bad decisions, but when you did what their family did, those kinds of bad decisions just weren't on the table.

Not to mention this was Dixie, Rachel! The perfect golden girl child who never did any wrong and was a serial monogamist. It didn't matter what any of the rumours said. Jason, as her brother knew better, and knew that this behaviour was out of the ordinary.

A chord in him snapped when the overly buff dude's hand started to make its way up her skirt. Jason was suddenly straight-backed and marching across the room.

He pulled the dumbass off of Dixie more violently than was strictly necessary, and he was gone with a growled "Scram."

Turning back to Dixie, he was just barely in time to catch her as she swayed forward, awkwardly manoeuvring her so that her arm was around him and he could drag her drunk ass out of here.

"What the hell Dix? What even is this?"

For all his outward irritation, her lack of a greeting had made him more worried than he already was.

"Heeyyy Jasson!" she slurred finally seeming to register who had suddenly invaded her space.

"Why'd'ya have to go and interrrupt, we were about to have such a good time," the wine came with wide eyes and a pout. She tipped forward, tripping over her own feet even as he held her up and began guiding her out of the bar.

"Jassson, d'ya think we could go find him, I was really looking forward to that! Why'd'ya have to go and ruin my good time?"

He wasn't going to even dignify that with a response, clearly, the golden girl was a dumb drunk. Seriously, how had she let herself get this sloshed? And what the fuck was she doing in that fuckin bar anyway?

Out on the street Jason ran into a problem, he had arrived here on his bike, but Dixie was in no condition to ride home on it behind him. Slowly he lowered Dixie onto the curb as he looked around lost. What the fuck was he gonna do? They were in the middle of nowhere and he had no way of getting them to anywhere else! Fuck!

He looked back down at Dixie, lost in thought and only just registered that she had struggled to her feet again as she began to wander off towards the darkness of an alley across the street.

Jason rushed to catch her, as she stumbled. Damn. Even drunk off her ass she could still move fast.

He caught her under her arm, winding his own around her waist to hold her up.

"Where do you think you're going missy?" he asked almost amused.

"Home, you dumb-dumb?" came her witty response, pointing to the now obvious Zeta tube hidden behind the dumpster.


End file.
